It has become all too familiar to hear of a pitcher that wowed the league by throwing hard and striking everyone out that, after his peak, cannot for the life of him stay healthy. Just this season we've had Lucas Giolito potentially be out for the season with whatever screwed up his arm in the second half of 2023, Kodai Senga potentially missing a ton of time after pitching beautifully last year, and Carlos Rodon continuing to worry Yankee fans by not quite reaching his fastball velocity. Pitchers are blowing their arms out at an accelerated rate and everyone's acting like it's not a problem. It is. I don't think it's possible for a starting pitcher to have a 20 year career anymore because now it's more like a 15 year career with 4 of those years being injury-prone half seasons.
And so here we are. Chris Sale has one year with the Braves to prove himself. At one point he was a surefire future Hall of Famer. Then in 2019 his arm got fatigued, he had a ton of arm surgeries and hasn't stayed healthy since. Does he have anything left?
I think about some of the other guys who've turned out like this. Corey Kluber famously struggled with injuries after his peak, and recently called it quits. Luis Severino had an excellent start but he's more careful than he's ever been now. James Paxton only showed up in Boston for a portion of his two year deal, but the stuff that appeared was excellent. And similarly, Sale's 2023 material was pretty solid, striking out 125 in 100 innings. But, ultimately, he got injured and was out in most of the second half.
I find it very funny that Sale is using a Spring Training stint to prove he's got it, because that's exactly what he was up to last year. I saw him start a game last spring, he looked pretty damn good actually, could still strike people out. But we don't know at what point Sale's arm is gonna tell him to stop. He's actually looked even better this spring, proving that the Braves knew something in snatching him for some small pieces.
People, at the time of the deal, called Sale a killswitch piece for the Braves, as he provided back rotation security behind Morton, Fried, Elder and Strider. But not only is Sale something of an injury liability, you have to think about Morton, who is 40, and Fried, who fought injuries through most of last season. And then you have to think about the next Chris Sale; Spencer Strider started 32 games last season, won 20 of them and struck out a league-leading 281. He will be 25 this season, and the hope is that he's able to replicate this without getting injured. But is this too much to ask, even for someone as talented as Strider?
I mean, if nobody gets injured, this rotation could bring them to October. But that's a big if, especially in 2024-era MLB, where everyone has to throw hard. Hell, the Braves have already seen two organizational phenom pitchers, Michael Soroka and Ian Anderson, completely lose their footing due to throwing out their arms. And that's the plan they seem to be going with for this year, just have everybody keep throwing really hard and hope it works. There needs to be some sort of whistleblowing thing that proves to clubs that this isn't a sustainable practice, though I doubt that'd even happen.
For now, we just have to hope that Chris Sale can have a solid comeback season without getting injured yet again. Though if the uniforms stay this troublesome, maybe he'll want to miss time...
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